me to stop, and
Ian dropped the squirter that I had newly filled for his turn, upon the
grass border, while he and Richard scurried toward the gateway to see
what was the matter, for the sound was like the screech of an automobile
horn in distress. It was!

A streak of dark red and a glitter of brass flashed in between the gate
posts, grazing them, and barely escaping an upset, and then came plunging
toward me. I screamed to the boys, who seemed to me directly in the path
of the _Thing_, which in another moment I recognized as an automobile of
the battering-ram variety, belonging to Harvey Somers, Gwendolen Burton's
fiance, which for the past week had been the terror of father's steady
old gray horses, owing to its constitutional eccentricities.

Mr. Somers was handling it single-handed, and though he was coming at a
reckless speed, I expected that he would swing back of the house and come
to one of the dramatic sudden stops, on the verge of an accident, for
which he is famous. So he did, but not on the driveway!

The _Thing_ gave a lurch and veered toward the barn, spitting like a
cageful of tiger cats. Somers was pushing the lever and gripping the
brake with all his athletic might, but to no purpose. The children, who,
wild with excitement, had by this time sought the safety of the open barn
door, seemed a second time to be in the monster's path.

Another lurch! Surely man and machine would be dashed to bits against
the substantial stable wall!

Then the _Thing_ changed its course, and showing a ray of flustered
intelligence, made a mighty leap off the bank wall and landed hub deep in
the soft, friable soil of the new strawberry bed, where, after one
convulsive effort, some part of its anatomy blew up with the triple
report of a rapid-fire gun, and after having relieved itself of a cloud
of steam, it settled down peacefully, as if a strawberry bed was the
place of all others it preferred for a noonday nap.

Harvey Somers was shot with a left-handed twirl directly into one of the
hotbed frames, from which the sash was pushed back, and landed in a
doubled-up position, amid a tearing sound and the crash of broken glass.
Meanwhile, the boys, frightened at the cloud of steam, yelled "Fire!" at
the top of their lungs.

As I flew to help him, I could for the instant think of nothing but the
Lizard Bill's assisted progress up the chimney and into the cucumber
frame, but as a rather faint voice said, "Not you; kindly c